Speed Typing: The Secret to Efficient AI Prompting

Prompt engineering is the new literacy. But beneath the strategies of "chain-of-thought" and "few-shot" prompting lies a fundamental physical skill: typing speed. It sounds trivial, but in an AI-augmented workflow, WPM (Words Per Minute) is a direct multiplier on your productivity.

The Iteration Cycle

Working with Large Language Models (LLMs) is a conversation. You ask, it answers, you refine. The faster you can type, the tighter this feedback loop becomes.

Imagine two developers debugging code with an AI.

• Developer A (40 WPM): Types a query. Waits. Gets a result. Slowly types a follow-up. The process feels disjointed, like submitting a support ticket and waiting for a reply.
• Developer B (100 WPM): Fires off a query. Tweaks the parameters instantly. Pastes a code snippet. Adds a constraint. The process feels like a real-time jam session with a pair programmer.

Verbose is Better

Modern LLMs thrive on context. The more specific information you provide, the better the output.

Slow typists tend to be terse to save effort. They write "fix this code." Fast typists write "Refactor this function to use async/await and handle the edge case where the user ID is null, while maintaining the existing error logging."

The fast typist gets the right answer on the first try. The slow typist spends ten minutes going back and forth to clarify what they meant.

Cognitive Load

When you type slowly, your brain has to slow down its thinking to match your fingers. You lose the thread of your thought.

When you type at the speed of thought (usually around 60-80 WPM for composition), the keyboard disappears. You are no longer "typing"; you are simply "thinking onto the screen." This reduces cognitive load and allows you to maintain a "flow state" even while interacting with a machine.

Conclusion

If you want to master AI, you need to master the keyboard. Speed allows you to be verbose without fatigue and iterative without frustration. It is the highest ROI skill you can learn in the digital age.